In this first book in a new series from James Rollins, an unexpected alliance forms to try to save Urth from a coming apocalypse: a young student who foresees the destruction; a prince, second in line to the throne, whose life has been spent in pursuit of pleasure; a thief who comes into possession of a remarkable artifact; a knight, banished by the king, who is called upon for help. This disparate group is hunted by enemies on all sides and are on the run, trying to prevent a coming disaster.

This first book takes the time to set the scene, building the world, establishing the characters and their motivations and the adversaries they face.

I am a big fan of James Rollins, but not of fantasy in general, so wasn’t sure what I would make of The Starless Crown. Once the initial introductions and world-building were done, the action picked up and didn’t let down!

There wasn't anything exactly wrong with this but I've read far too many fantasy novels for this to be anything but generic. I know this was Rollins' first foray into fantasy, but he stuck to the well-worn path rather than trying to create something of his own.

I'd never read James Rollins before this book and now I might have to!. Definitely some cool world building in this book along with some well developed characters and plot that was well done.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review!

While this book had some amazing aspects, I found the writing to be difficult to connect to. The plots slow progression made it even harder to get invested in the story. The magic/science system was probably the best part of the story. The character's motivations were confusing at times and unfortunately made the book a tough read.

This was good. But the thing is, if I spend this much time invested in a book, I kind of want it to be great? And maybe it was just me, but I felt like a lot could have been edited out. I did like how all of the various characters were brought together fairly quickly to create a little team I could root for, and I thought they were all really well written. I did like the central storyline and the world building he did. So enjoyable for the most part! This just came out earlier this month, so I’m interested to see if I want to read the sequel when it’s released.

This was my first James Rollins book. It was a little hard to get into at first for me, but everything was well thought out and plotted. There is a lot going on here but if you love epic fantasy, you will enjoy this book. It is the first in the series so there are more to come. James is a masterful storyteller.

James Rollins is great at creating action and intrigue. The Starless Crown is no exception. The story starts with Nyx, a young woman who is blind and studying with students well beyond her means.. She is bullied by staff and students alike. Not soon after being introduced to the character, readers discover her history is more than what is presented as are her abilities. The story jumps to Rhaif, an imprisoned thief desperate to escape and stumbles upon a strange and fantastical find. Then we meet Prince Kanthe, a lesser adored twin who wins no love from his kingly father. Finally, we have Graylin, an exiled former best friend of the king and knight of the kingdom. The novel jumps between these four characters. Readers pay attention! The action starts from the get go and readers are quickly pulled along. Rollins does a great job of creating the characters as well. They have depth, they are interesting, and they are in their own ways relatable. What really impresses me is that the same can be said for the side characters.

Rollins world building is impressive as well. Rollins does a great job of introducing the backdrop of the story, the magic, and even the creatures that inhabit his world. The Starless Crown easily lays the ground work for the rest of the series. For readers of Rollin's thrillers, you will be familiar with his signature style including science, suspense, murder, torture, and edge of your seat adventure. Rollins brings all of this to this book.

Overall, I loved the read and really look forward to the rest of the series.

The Starless Crown, by author James Rollins, is the first installment in the authors Moon Fall series. I have read an interview that stated Rollins plans to write four total in this series. Rollins debuts a major new series that opens a riven world trapped between fire and ice. One upon a time, Urth turned as our world does. Then it stopped. Now you have a tidal locked planet with one hemisphere always in the scorching sun and the other forever shadowed in frosty darkness. While the story unfolds through several viewpoints, it is really Nyx who is the true main character and heart of the story.

First, she was raised by Myr bats after her mother dies when she was born. Thanks to being raised by bats, she's nearly blind. Being nearly blind is a huge disadvantage against her fellow students who look down on her and bully her because they are from rich families. Nyx has spent 1/2 her life in the walled Cloistry of Brayk. Nyx experiences the world through touch, but after her fellow students attack her, and she nearly dies, her adopted brother (Bashaliia) comes to her rescue.

Several moon turns later, Nyx can also now see clearly for the first time in her life and gets a premonition of the end of the world. Instead of heeding the warning, however, the king decides the bearer of such a dangerous prophecy must be put to death. Nyx, along with her best friend Jace, will go on a massive adventure reminiscent of the Lord of the Ring in a world where she's far more important and powerful than she ever could have dreamed.

Rhaif is an imprisoned thief betrayed by his guild. His greatest fear is being stuck in darkness. After a cave in, Rhaif escapes and finds a gleaming artifact—one that will ignite a power struggle across the globe or bring about its doom. It seems that this artifact is highly prized by some powerful and dangerous people. The only way to remain alive and free, is to find help from people who are criminals or worst. Rhaif and the Bronze woman he calls Shiva eventually meets up with Nyx's group and the action is almost non-stop.

Prince Kanthe is the second born twin of King Toranth. After being pushed aside in favor of his brighter, bolder, and more promising older twin brother, Kanthe is generally fine with his lot in life, and spends his days in something of a drunken haze. Kanthe is given a mission to retrieve Nyx which in turn becomes part of a larger plot to assassinate him and get him out of the picture. Kanthe's entire view of the world is set to change. Kanthe is naively noble. When he learns about Nyx's premonition and her fate if she falls into the wrong hands, he promises to find a way to make sure Nyk lives to find a way to stop Armageddon.

Graylin is a knight living in exile. He’s sworn never to return home or to wield his sword again, but when he receives word that the child of his slain lover might be still alive, he may be forced to break his vows once more. Graylin later learns that the woman that he once loved gave birth to a daughter who is Nyx. He experiences all the awkward and overwhelming emotions of suddenly trying to make up for the fact that he maybe could have done something to save the woman he loved and her daughter.

There’s a lot of time spent introducing the characters and their back stories as well as world-building, but that’s not unusual in the first book in a series of this magnitude. As readers get acquainted with the characters, both good and bad, it becomes clear that there is even more going on than the journey. Evil, greed, the desire for power, and treachery are abundant. One of the more interesting parts of this book is the fact that some of the travel takes place in what would be considered to be zeppelins.

Clocking in at 560 pages, I really don't think this needed to be as long as it is. A very significant part of the book is characters traveling and fighting, which gets to feel repetitive at times, especially because we keep switching to the perspectives of yet more characters who are also traveling and fighting that being the villains and their contemporaries.

I've read and liked most of Mr Rollins' books, including his Godslayer fantasy series written as James Clemens, but I had a hard time starting this new fantasy and then kept putting it down. It just didn't hold my attention, and though I did finish it, in the end unfortunately I think this just was not for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher(s) for a digital ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review. I'll be completely honest: I drug my feet on reading this, mostly because I was throwing a mild temper tantrum because this wasn't a SIGMA series title. I struggled to get into this book from the start, but I know that Rollins carefully plots his books, his worlds and his entire story, so I kept going and I'm really glad I did. Things picked up midway and I really found myself getting into the story and being emotionally invested in these characters and their situations. Some of it I found a little harsh-one of the characters seems to have just and endless run of bad things happen and I found myself going "PLEASE EASE UP" but that didn't happen. I'm hoping-now that I've realized that this is a series-that in future installments the characters has a run of really good things that happen to compensate all the bad. I was grudgingly pleased at this book overall-Rollins is a fabulous author, so I really shouldn't be surprised at how it all came together and went. He's got talent in spades and I'm finding myself waiting for the next installment.

*Rounded up from a 3.5*

I would say that I enjoyed this book. It wasn't perfect, but the story had enough unique aspects to it, as well as plenty of action that kept the story chugging along fairly well. It's a good blend of the classic multi-POV fantasy adventure story coupled with some good politics and drama. So it has a little bit of everything for every fantasy reader. It even has some very light, almost sci-fi elements? Maybe more steampunk, but I always associate steampunk as a sort of overlap of fantasy and sci-fi. The focus on alchemy and the way they use it to improve technology just gives me big steampunk vibes. One thing I will definitely say about this book, it had fantastic world building. It's clear that a lot of time and effort went into crafting the world and all of its history in this book. The cultures, the world itself, the creatures, and the history of the world were all thorough and interesting to learn about as you read the book. It doesn't hurt that the end of some of the chapters have sketches of the creatures. I don't know about you guys, but I love when books (especially fantasy books) have pictures of the content. Rollins' writing was very descriptive so as to allow the reader to become immersed in the world and the action happening. But it also wasn't overbearing, the writing itself was very balanced so as not to take away from the plot, but rather to bolster it and keep it moving.

The story was pretty good and it kept my interest, but there were some things that I didn't care for that kind of took me out of the story. First off, I never really cared for Nyx. Just something about the way that she's written did not vibe with me. I wouldn't say that I disliked her, I just didn't care very much for her. The fact that every time she was hit with something new, or would gain a new ability, she always just knew how to do it. There was never development of that ability because she always just seemed to immediately know everything about it and how to master it. There were also a fairly strong reliance on characters tropes which I can give or take, wasn't the end of the world, but it made the characters feel relatively standard. The thief with the heart of gold, the scoundrel prince, the overweight side character who serves to bolster the main characters, etc. On a similar level as tropes, there were a lot of convenient saves. A lot of "we'll never survive this but oh look something happened right at the last moment so there were no real consequences." I'm hoping that these things will all be greatly lessened by the time the next book is released.

Overall, it was a strong start to the series. I'm fairly impressed by the content, especially since James Rollins is known for thrillers, so for him to write such a solid fantasy book on his first go is pretty impressive. Sure, there are things that I didn't care for very much, but the story itself and the characters within have promise. I look forward to seeing how the world grows and the characters develop in the next book!

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author James Rolling has a stunning new book in a brilliant new series. The Starless Crown is the first volume of The Moonfall Saga. It's an epic story with rich world-building and wonderful characters.

Abandoned as an infant in the swamps of Myr, Nyx is mostly blind and needs help with her studies at the Cloister. Jace failed his fifth year, but assists Nyx in her seventhyear by reading her texts aloud and writing for her. Despite this handicap, she excels at her studies and the other students bully her.

Fleeing from one such barrage, Nyx is attacked by a Myr bat. The creature’s deadly venom brings terrifying visions of the world's end. Nyx wakes nearly a full turn of the moon later, her vision restored and with conviction that she has seen the future: Moonfall.

The Starless Crown is a true fantasy saga, where characters from different backgrounds collide. They grow “into a makeshift alliance, united by blood, grief, and purpose, all centered on one word. Moonfall.”

I enjoyed the book so much that I purchased the audiobook version for my collection via Audible, and started listening to it immediately after its release.

The Starless Crown
(Moon Fall #1)
by James Rollins

This book is so weird and interesting! I was so engrossed in Nyk's story that I just wanted to stay with her but it lead to the others. Nyk's is a girl that is almost totally blind. She was found that way. When you find out how she became blind and her life the 6 months before she was found as a baby will stun you! It did me! Then, well let's just say her life doesn't get any more normal!

Then there is a Prince that is a twin. His dad doesn't care for him at all and only loves his brother. A thief that escapes a pit during a quake. During that quake a large copper egg is found that opens up and holds a copper statue! But it responds to the their only when the soldiers and priests aren't looking!

This is a most unusual adventure. Nyk's has predicted an world ending event! So has the Prince's tutor. Very exciting!
I want to thank the publisher and NetGalley for letting me read this terrific fantasy book!

Solid Storytelling. Nearly Deceptive Description. Let me be explicitly clear: THIS IS A FANTASY BOOK. It is NOT a Sigma Force style science-bending military technothriller. Given Rollins' rise to fame on the back of his Sigma Force books, as well as the fact that he has *another* pseudonym for his pre-Sigma Force fantasy novels, the fact that the description of this book does not make clear that THIS IS A FANTASY BOOK is dang near deceptive marketing. If you enjoy fantasy tales, this one is going to be perfectly in line with what you enjoy and more power to you. But despite having a *far* wider range in my own reading than most readers, fantasy books are one of *few* genres that just make for dang good naps every time I try to read them - and this one was no different, despite LOVING Rollins' Sigma Force work and at times reading it in a single sitting. This noted, Rollins' abilities to craft a tale are just as strong here, and for what it is the story is compelling. Truly my only complaint is that it should have been made explicitly clear that THIS IS A FANTASY BOOK, and I would never have touched it at all. Recommended.

3.5 stars

You can read all of my reviews at Nerd Girl Loves Books.

This is the first book in a new Fantasy/SciFi series about a prophecy that a young girl born to an exiled couple will bring about an apocalypse. The Kingdom is on the brink of war with another nation. The King orders his second son to hunt down a species of bats in order to get their venom for weapons. He also orders the Prince to capture the young girl. Meanwhile, in another part of the Kingdom, a thief escapes prison along with a life sized bronze woman that has come to life. The thief's intricate escape plan goes awry when the woman indicates she has a destiny to fulfill.

Well. I don't even know where to start with this book. It's 560 pages long, and it felt like it. I can normally breeze through a book this size in a few days, but I struggled to finish this one in over a week. It's very common to have a significant amount of worldbuilding in the first book of a fantasy series. I get that. I've devoured tons of George R.R. Martin and Brandon Sanderson books. But the worldbuilding in the beginning of this book was excessive, and was far too detailed. I was at around 35-40% of the book before I even knew what the story was all about. That's not good.

There are multiple main characters and the chapters alternate between their points of view. There are also several minor characters to keep track of, and frankly it got to be a bit much. Even with all of the worldbuilding in the beginning, the author kept adding more and more background, characters and lore throughout the book until I finally gave up trying to remember everything.

I think the main storyline is intriguing and I like most of the main characters, but I still couldn't connect with this book. I'm not sure if it's the enormous amount of information provided, or perhaps the author's writing style that just left me numb. I think forgoing some of the intricacies of the story, and/or better editing would have greatly improved the book. Usually the rest of the books in a series move more quickly, so I'm hopeful that the next book has less worldbuilding and more story telling.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley and MacMillan-Tor/Forge. All opinions are my own.

Reviewed the audiobook edition:


DNF at 84%

I'm just throwing in the towel. It's a decent story with good characters and worldbuilding, I just don't care. It's been going and going and going and my attention is drifting further and further away.

Not a bad book, or a bad audio, I just need to move to something else before it triggers another reading slump.

An long but interesting read. I've been a fan of Rollins from his fiction books and was interested to see him venture into Fantasy,

We follow the adventures of Nyx a teen student who has a gift and foretells about Apocalypse. We then embark on a journey with her and her group as they face perils with people who want to stop her yet also get the support of those who want her to succeed.

The book takes some time to introduce us to the world and characters, but it's certainly action packed. The characters are developed well and plot picks up after a slow start.

Overall, I enjoyed it.

Yes. More please. I pretty much loved everything about this book, well except one thing but it wasn't important to the story line. I loved the in depth story and the world building. The characters, you could empathize with them, and antagonist you actually hate. It is a great story I can't wait for more.

***Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.***

Getting through the hundreds upon hundreds of pages (normally something I love to see with fantasy!) of this book was my biggest challenge of 2021. It was weird to me to discover that this author is known for his thrillers, as the pacing and suspense of this book were so terrible that it was a chore to read.

An entire chapter for a man to go to the bathroom and walk around? Tropes (the blind orphan girl who gets bullied but is precociously smart; the prisoner who overthrows the guards and becomes higher status, the unlikely band of misfits who comes together) just....it was too much, and not well done enough to be worth it.

Essentially LOTR with sexism, poorer quality writing, less engaging characters, and lazy worldbuilding. So....LOTR without all of the things that make that series so incredible.

Sometimes a book comes along with such a powerful blurb that you can’t help but be drawn to it. The Starless Crown, by James Rollins, is one such novel. A kind editor at Tor sent me the elevator pitch for this book back in the middle of last year and I was immediately entranced. A band of unlikely heroes comes together in a science fiction fantasy story to fight the literal moon? Where do I sign? Unfortunately, because of our packed review schedule, and the fact that The Starless Crown does not come out until early next month, I had to push my read of this exciting new story… until last week. As the first novel in the MoonFall series, is it an explosive success or just a crater?

Starless follows three and a half protagonists, which is new for me. The half is because the fourth protagonist joins the story about halfway through, but once they hit the ground they keep running. Our eclectic adventuring party is made up of first Nyx, a fourteen-year-old student at a prestigious school studying the secrets of the world and who also happens to be 90% blind. Second, we have Prince Kanthe, a second son and wastrel who lives a life of debauchery because he can never have his older twin’s throne. His father tires of his antics and sends him on a quest to destroy the home of the Myr bats, enormous poisonous bats that are extremely dangerous. Third, we have Rhaif, thief and amateur archeologist. Rhaif is stuck in prison when he discovers a powerful artifact in the mines below the jail. After using it to escape, he finds himself on the run for his life. Finally, we have Graylin, a knight in exile who is finally given a reason to come home. There is more to this story, but he is the half a protagonist I mentioned and I don’t want to give away too much.

So what do all of these people have in common? Well, they are trying to fight the sky. The world of Starless is a distant planet that is in a tidal lock in its solar system. What this means, essentially, is that the same side of the planet is always facing the sun which turns half into a boiling death trap, and the other half into a frozen death trap. The only survivable portion is a thin (starless) crown around the planet that is habitable at the equator. This would all be well and good, but early on in the story a teacher figure of Kanthe discovers that on top of everything else that makes their world SUPER FUN, the moon is also in a gravitational decline and will soon crash into the planet and kill literally everyone. Just the best. As this information propagates our diverse cast all end up looking for solutions to the death by moon problem. Thus we get 4 quests that cross and diverge all unified by the same goal of not dying by moon.

There is a really powerful frantic energy in Starless. Rollins does a very good job establishing a heavy and urgent atmosphere around this idea that everyone is going to die to a cosmic event that they can’t even begin to hope to affect (at first). On top of this, the cast is just delightfully memorable. On top of each character having a great hook, they have a really nice range of personalities that foil off one another. Nyx is curious and insightful, Kanthe is charismatic and boisterous, Raith is cunning and competent, and Graylin is chivalrous and driven. Despite their time together in this first volume being short, all of them feel like they fit together in this large phantom puzzle.

To top it all off, the plot is exciting and thrilling. Rollins apparently was a thriller bestseller before this, and it comes through in his story structure. The twists are many and exciting. The plot is always swerving to interesting and exciting places. On top of this, Rollins may be new to fantasy but he clearly knows the genre. There are lots of fun trope subversions that are clever and not just there to be ‘twisty’. So with all of these brilliant positives, Starless must seem like a knockout success. Unfortunately, I still have an area I need to dig into about where I struggled with this book: the prose.

If I didn’t consistently struggle with the prose of this book, I might have already flagged it as a potential top novel of 2022. I found Starless’ exposition lacking, the dialogue stilted, and the delivery oddly repetitive. To begin Starless is filled with very complicated and interesting sounding locations and creatures, but their descriptions fail to bring them to life. Exposition in some places is so short and vague I struggled to understand what I was looking at. In addition, most of the dialogue is extremely awkward. Most of the internal monologues were great, but when characters interacted I always got the feeling that I was watching actors in a play. I was constantly aware that I was reading a book and was actively pushed out of my immersion in many instances. Finally, passages were sometimes extremely repetitive. I occasionally wondered if this was only an issue of my ARC, because it would feel like Rollins left two versions of a scene in a book in order to try them both out. Characters repeat conversations with only minor deviations. One example early on is when Raith is moving about his prison. We are treated to a description of a guard about how callous and selfish he is, only to get a second description on the next page that also describes him as callous and selfish, with only a slightly different example to demonstrate. My enjoyment of Starless was constantly weighed down by the writing and it was a disappointment.

The Starless Crown has a squadron of strengths in its corner. With its twisty plot, cool world, and great cast it sits as a fun and entrancing read that straddles both the science fiction and fantasy genre. Unfortunately, my struggles with the book’s prose kept me from engaging with the material. I had enough fun that I will be back for the sequel, but I hope my issues with the prose are less prevalent by then.

Rating: The Starless Crown – 7.0/10
-Andrew